I AM PUT TO GREAT TORMENT BY MY PASSION.
As soon as I was strong enough to get about, I went daily with my lady
into the woods a-hunting; but as yet my left arm was useless, though
getting strong apace, so that I could but play the part of squire to
her. But, Lord! to see how dexterous she was with the bow, did give me
more pride and pleasure than any of my own prowess. Yet from the
tenderness of her love for all living things she was averse from this
practice, which we men regard as an amusing pastime, and therefore would
she kill nothing but that which was necessary to our existence.
I remember one day, when she had drawn her bow to shoot a dove that sat
pluming its wings on a bough, she relaxed the string and returned the
arrow to her sheaf.
"'Tis a fine fat pigeon," says I, "and we have naught for our supper:
why have you spared it?"
"Do you not see her mate in the bough above?" says she. And so we supped
on fruit and cassavy that night; but with no regret.
However, if there were moments of pain in these expeditions, there were
long hours of delight; for now the woods were as like to Paradise as the
mind of man can conceive, nothing lacking to enchant the senses; and to
speak of all the rare and beautiful flowers and fruits we carried home
to garnish our cavern would be an endless undertaking. And as these
woods, valleys, and purling streams were like Paradise, so was I like a
blessed soul therein; and I doubt if many men in all their lives sum up
so much pure joy as every minute yielded to me. Here, day after day, I
strolled beside my dear lady in the shade of delicate flowers, enveloped
in sweet odors, and with warbling birds around us. But to my senses the
sweetest music was her voice, the daintiest bloom her cheek, the most
intoxicating perfume her breath. Looking around, it seemed to me that
all Nature did but reflect her beauty, and therein lay its perfection.
There were favorite spots where we would rest, noting the development of
familiar things--how these buds expanded, how that fruit ripened, how
the young birds began to stretch their naked necks beyond the nest's
edge, crying for food; indeed, there was such scope for observation, and
my dear lady was so quick to perceive and appreciate all things of
beauty, that no moment was dull or tame.
While we indulged to the full our love for rambling, we were not
unmindful of domestic things. The season was now come for plucking silk
grass, and of this we cut an abundance, and laid it on the rocks to dry;
for my lady designed to plait it, in the Ingas' style, into a long
strip, which she might make up into clothing by-and-by. This plaiting
was the first work I put my hand to, and though I bungled sadly over it
to begin with, I grew defter in time, so that I could do it as well in
the dark as in the day. Many an evening we sat weaving our grass hour
after hour, with no light but that of the stars as they twinkled forth,
chatting the whole while of other matters. But before I got to this
proficiency--indeed, as soon as I could plait decently--I made a hat for
my lady; not so much like a woman's as a boy's, that it might go fairly
with her habit; and this, with a couple of bright tail-feathers from a
macucagui[6] stuck in jauntily o' one side, became her mightily, though
I say it; but, for that matter, anything looked well that she took for
her use.
[Footnote 6: These birds are as like our pheasants as any two peas in a
pod.--B. P.]
About this time we had the good fortune to catch a partlet sitting on a
nest of fifteen eggs; taking these home without delay, we clapped the
eggs in a corner of our conies' cavern, where the hen, after some little
ado, sat down upon them, being hemmed in with the hurdle that parted off
my bed-chamber from our parlor, which I fetched out for that purpose.
About a fortnight later my Lady Biddy came to me in great glee one
morning to say that every one of the eggs were hatched out; and I know
not which looked the more content, this old hen strutting carefully
amidst her chicks as proud as a peacock, or my dear lady casting some
cassavy pap before them for a meal.
And now the conies multiplying prodigiously, that cavern was full of
young live things, so that there was as much work to provide for their
mouths as our own; but there was never too much for my lady to do, and
she would not part with a single one.
"They are my children," she would say, with a little sadness in her
smile.
With these innocent pleasures and hard work my lady beguiled the days,
and so two months passed away--two months, as I say, of inexpressible
delight for me. Not a day passed without my discovering some new charm
in her person, some fresh grace in her character, which I had previously
overlooked. And how to keep this adoration that filled my soul from
overflowing by my lips, or my eyes, was almost more than I could
compass.
One day when I was culling a nosegay, and seeing in the pale pink and
cream hue of the flowers resemblance to my lady's cheek, I (being then
alone) did with extravagant passion bury my face in the fresh cool
bloom, kissing them till my transport was spent. Then, looking again at
the blossoms, I was sobered to perceive how I had crushed out their
freshness and beauty, so that they no longer bore any likeness to my
dear lady's face.
So then I resolved I would not suffer myself to fall in love with her;
but that was easier said than done. For 'twere as easy to promise you
would not grow hungered or athirst. However, one thing was possible, if
I had any manhood, and that was to keep my love from being known to my
dear lady.
Nevertheless, before long I had reason to believe she had guessed my
secret, for she also grew silent and downcast beyond her wont, and more
than once I spied her looking at me with pity and sorrow, as if she knew
of my trouble.
One day, when I addressed her as "my lady," she said:
"Why should you call me by a title here where there is no distinction?
Why not call me 'sister,' Benet, or plain 'Biddy'?--for we are as
brother and sister to one another, are we not, and must ever be?"
This hint showed what was in her mind; and yet if she had learnt my
secret, God knows it was against the best I could do to hide it.
I called her "sister" after that, hoping it would train my mind to think
of her in that relation; but it did not, so that I knew not what remedy
to get for the fever of my heart.
One morning we were made merry at breakfast by the partlet making her
way over the rocks that divided us from the conies' cave, and bringing
all her brood to pay us a visit, which was as much as ever she could
tempt them to undertake, and called for prodigious chuckling and
scratching on her part. Our diversion somewhat relaxed the feeling of
restraint within me, and when my dear lady, taking up a chick in her
fair hands, held it up that I might see how bright and free were its
eyes, I, looking all the while upon the lovely girl's head that was so
near me, was within an ace of bending down to touch it with my lips. Now
this being a Tuesday was the day for grinding our cassavy meal, and
perceiving by my heat that I dare not trust myself to stand by our bench
all the morning beside my lady, I made believe I had a relish for fish
that day, and begged her to take her rod and line and go a-fishing while
I ground the cassavy.
"Nay," says she, "do you go a-fishing, for your arm is not yet strong
enough to do this hard work alone."
But I protested I was able to do this, my arm being as well as ever it
had been, and that she was a better angler than I (as indeed was true),
and so she presently took her rod and went over the rocks to a pool
where fish abounded. When I had ground my meal and set the kitchen
neatly in order, I betook myself to the rocks straightway; for I could
never abide to let my lady be long out of sight for fear of accident
befalling her. And that I might not scare the fish, I approached the
pool noiselessly; but turning a rock that screened that part from view I
was brought of a sudden to a stand by spying my poor little comrade
sitting on a big stone, her rod lying idly beside her, her elbows on her
knees, and her face buried in her hands. She made no sound, but I could
see, by the twitching of her shoulders, that she was sobbing. Then would
I have given all the world to be able to go thither and comfort her--to
draw her to me and soothe her as a brother might his sister. But
reflecting that we were but brother and sister in name, and that I
should but add to her distress by my endeavors to assuage it, I drew
back as silently as I had come, and going back to the cavern I sank down
on my stone stool as wretched and sore at heart as might be.
"Poor soul," thinks I, "she must needs weep at times to relieve her
overcharged heart. There are birds that do pine away in captivity. This
is no home for her. These chicks and conies can never replace the
friends she has lost and can never hope to rejoin. Here there is naught
to hope for; even Nature must cease to charm her when she sees that
these mountains and waters serve as the bars of a cage. What cheerful
word can I whisper? What can I do to bring joy into those dear eyes?"
In this sort did I spend the time till I heard her voice feigning to hum
a merry ditty, when I also put on a careless look to hide my care.
She had caught half a dozen fishes, so that she could not have given way
long to grief; nor was it in her nature to yield to useless regrets. If
I had judged only by her present manner I should have said that nothing
was amiss with her, for she persevered in sprightly conversation, albeit
I could join in it but poorly; still, as we sat to our dinner, I noted
that the lids of her pretty eyes were swollen and red. Also I observed
that her cheek was thinner than it used to be, and the blue veins in the
back of her hand more clearly marked. Then it struck me that perhaps her
dejection arose from failing health, and that the vapors from the fens,
wafting over the lake, had already attacked her, as they had before
seized me.
Then of a sudden the thought came to me as I looked at her--
"What should I do without my dear little comrade?"
And at this reflection it seemed as if the food I was eating must choke
me.
God knows how I got through that meal. When it was over, I made a
pretense of feeding the conies to go apart where I might give vent to
the terrible emotion that brought me to a despairing grief. And saying
again, "What should I do without her?" I wept like any child, but with
the difficulty of a man, so that I felt as if my heart was being torn
out of my breast, and beat my foot upon the ground in agony.
However, this weakness passed away with my tears, and then bracing
myself up with more manly fortitude I swore, betwixt my clenched teeth,
that all the powers of Nature should not keep my lady prisoner there. As
I said this, my eye fell upon a mark on the rock, left by the turbid
swollen waters, and marking how the waters were now fallen from this
height a good five fathoms, I conceived a means of escape which had
never before occurred to me.